When we’re alone, you can call me Elellanar. I shouldn’t, miss. It wouldn’t be proper. Nothing in this situation is right. If we’re to be married or whatever the arrangement is, you’ll have to use my name. He nodded slowly. Elellanar. My name and his deep, gentle voice sounded like music.
So, you should know something too. I don’t think you’re incapable of getting married. I think the men who rejected you were fools. A man who can’t see beyond the wheelchair and doesn’t think about the person in it doesn’t deserve you. That was the nicest thing anyone had said to me in four years. “Do you want to do it?” I asked.
Do you approve of my father’s plan? Yes, without hesitation. I will protect you. I will take care of you. And I will do my best to be worthy of you. And I will do everything to make it bearable for both of us. We sealed the agreement with a handshake, his enormous hand clasping mine, warm and surprisingly soft.
To marry me off—and certainly not to a woman accepted by white society—he gathered the servants, read verses from the Bible, and announced that Josiah was now responsible for me. He spoke on my behalf about Leonor’s well-being. My father spoke to everyone present about books he had secretly collected and tools from the forge. The first few weeks were strange. Strangers trying to cope with an impossible situation.
I was used to having servants. He was used to hard work. Now, he was responsible for intimate tasks: helping me dress, carrying me when my wheelchair was unusable, attending to needs I never would have imagined discussing with a man. But Josiah approached everything with extraordinary gentleness.
When he had to carry me, he always asked my permission first. While he was helping me get dressed, he looked away whenever he could. “You too.” He was reorganizing my bookshelf. I had told him I wanted it arranged alphabetically, and he had taken care of it, but it’s still a work in progress.
Could it be possible? He looked at me, his imposing stature, however, holding nothing intimidating, as he knelt beside the bookshelf. Elaner, I’ve been a slave all my life. I’ve performed grueling forced labor in sweltering heat that would have killed most men. I’ve been whipped for my mistakes, sold far from home. He was treated like a cash cow. He gestured broadly in the comfortable room. “This life here, taking care of someone who treats me like a human being, having access to books and conversations… It’s not a problem.”
But you remain a slave. Yes, but I prefer to be a slave here with you than free, but alone, elsewhere. He returned to his books. Is it wrong to say that? I don’t think so. I think it’s sincere. But here’s what I haven’t told you. What I still couldn’t admit to myself. I began to feel something. Something impossible.
Something dangerous. By the end of April, we had already settled in. In the mornings, Josiah helped me prepare meals, then took me to lunch. He remembered his childhood on another farm. Glowing hot, then hammering the material with precision. “Do you think I could try?” I asked suddenly. He looked up, surprised. “Try what?” “Working at the forge. Hammering something.” He positioned my wheelchair near the anvil and heated a small piece of iron.
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